EVENTS

Over 140 medical professionals

Great. There was a “symposium” in Ireland at which some boffins concluded to their own satisfaction that “abortion is not necessary to save the mother’s life in any circumstance” so PersonhoodUSA naturally gives a yell of triumph. Go right ahead and force Catholic hospitals to let pregnant women die rather than provide an abortion, Catholic church!

According to the Irish organization Youth Defence, “Leading medical experts speaking at a major International Symposium on Excellence in Maternal Healthcare held in Dublin have concluded that ‘direct abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a mother.’”

Over 140 medical professionals attended the Symposium where new research and extensive clinical experience was presented by experts in obstetrics and gynecology, mental health, and molecular epidemiology. The symposium’s final determinations were published in a declaration titled “Dublin Declaration on Maternal Healthcare” which reads:

“As experienced practitioners and researchers in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, we affirm that direct abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman. We uphold that there is a fundamental difference between abortion, and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of life of her unborn child. We confirm that the prohibition of abortion does not affect, in any way, the availability of optimal care to pregnant women.”

Science has spoken! Well, at least medical expertise has spoken. Or some medical expertise has spoken. Or a bit of medical expertise combined with an agenda has spoken.

There’s some serious weasel-wording going on in that last paragraph, with the Doctrine of Double Effect lurking just beneath the surface. I think they’re leaving an opening whereby you can treat medical conditions of the mother, even though it may or will kill the fetus, but that’s not an abortion because you didn’t really mean to (and why that couldn’t be applied to the infamous Brazil or Phoenix cases, I don’t know).

“…We uphold that there is a fundamental difference between abortion, and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of life of her unborn child.”(Emphasis mine)

Wow!! That is some amazing verbal jugglery there to reconcile between medical fact and religious injunction.

We uphold that there is a fundamental difference between abortion, and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of life of her unborn child.

where new research and extensive clinical experience was presented by experts in obstetrics and gynecology, mental health, and molecular epidemiology
This new research will be reviewed and published in reputed journals – right next to those extensively researched articles about ID.

And as to chemotherapy that kills the fetus not being an abortion, that’s exactly the way the Santorums are able to justify their believe they did not engage in the practice.

She was given a massive dose of antibiotics to save her life, with the known side effect of terminating the pregnancy. Oh no, that’s not an abortion. Because they didn’t wish the pregnancy to end, it was merely the inevitable outcome — apparently if you think magic thoughts, it’s different.

But RU-286 is abortion. Cuz the difference between the two approaches is … well …. um …. er ….

“We uphold that there is a fundamental difference between abortion, and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of life of her unborn child.”

Perhaps I’m wrong, but that reads to me like, “FINE! We won’t call it “abortion”, but we’re not going to stop doing it.”

It seems impossible to find a link to the actual Dublin Declaration containing the signatories to the Declaration. It’s impossible to tell who among the supposed 140 attendees actually agreed with the Declaration, who dissented (if anyone) or who would have expressed a more nuanced opinion if given the chance.
The organizing committee which put on the event is chaired by

(…) direct abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman. We uphold that there is a fundamental difference between abortion, and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of life of her unborn child.

What they’re really saying here is that “abortion” is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman, because if the procedure (e. g., surgery to remove an ectopic pregnancy) is medically necessary to save the life of a woman, they’ll call it something else.

What the heck were those “medical professionals” smoking? It was too strong for them, whatever it was. HELLP syndrome, pre-eclampsia, ectopic pregnancy, pulmonary hypertension, uterine cancer, severe hydrocephalus with anencephaly, acute hepatitis of pregnancy, DIC, twin pregnancy with demise of one twin (higher order multiples also, of course)…all conditions that may require abortion to save the pregnant woman’s life (and, in some instances, the life of the other fetus or fetuses that are still viable). And that’s just what I came up with by thinking about it for 30 seconds, without consulting any references. And I’m not an OB.

@16: When confronted with this example, “pro-lifers” usually propose waiting for the ectopic pregnancy to rupture and kill the embryo (tubal pregnancies don’t last long enough for there to be a fetus involved) and then remove the ovary, along, often, with a fair bit of the rest of the abdominal cavity, after it’s dead. There is zero chance of a tubal pregnancy going to term and waiting for the inevitable rupture is painful and dangerous to the mother, compromising her health, fertility, and survival and, of course, it’s mentally agonizing to wait for the inevitable, but at least you can call it something other than an “abortion” and that’s all that matters, right?

As Eamon says, though, it’s recognizably the Double Effect nonsense. If I remember correctly the “problem” in the Phoenix case was that abortion was the treatment, period. The pregnancy was causing the high blood pressure and only termination would fix that. Apparently the claim here is that oh ha there are other ways.

So, let me get this straight. Any woman who dies from lack of an abortion is just pretending to be dead? Dead women don’t count as evidence? Wow. Just…wow. Medical professionals? Sound more like ghouls.

The woman in the AZ case probably had pre-eclampsia. There is no other treatment besides ending the pregnancy. There are some temporizing measures that can help if the pregnancy is far enough along that another few days or week would mean that a delivery of a live baby was possible. But in this case the pregnancy was 11 weeks along. There is no treatment that would allow the pregnancy to continue another 13 weeks or so, which would be the minimum to even consider a delivery with any rational hope of a surviving, eventually healthy child. If she hadn’t been treated, she would have started having seizures, her blood would have started clotting in her veins and simultaneously bleeding out every orifice and any lines or tubes in her body, she would have first gasped for breath then been completely unable to breath as her lungs filled up with fluid, and she would have eventually drowned or exsanguinated or went into a seizure that ended only with death. That’s what the “pro-life” movement WANTED to happen to her.

Iknklast@20: No; you’ve misunderstood. When they “affirm that direct abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman”, what they mean is that saving the life of a woman is not medically necessary.

if the procedure (e. g., surgery to remove an ectopic pregnancy) is medically necessary to save the life of a woman, they’ll call it something else.

Yes. I brought up such a case when talking to a Catholic friend, and she stated flatly that in that case it wasn’t an abortion. For the religious, it’s the words that matter, not reality. They define things out of existence with the same ease as they define things into existence.

I hate Catholics. I’m USAian and normally have great respect for the first amendment no-law-respecting-establishment-of-religion, but lately I’ve been wishing we could make Catholicism flat out illegal. Seize all RCC property – church buildings, schools, hospitals – under RICO laws, but more than that, make it illegal to say mass, attend mass, own a Catholic bible … yes, I know how problematic this would be, morally, as well as impossible to enforce in the real world … but I have come to think that everyone who voluntarily remains affiliated with the RCC are at best abettors of truly evil criminals, if not truly evil themselves. Catholicism sucks. People who remain Catholics personally suck, too. It’s not just their abstract ideology that sucks, it’s their entire inhumane identity that sucks. They need to be stopped.

“…lately I’ve been wishing we could make Catholicism flat out illegal. Seize all RCC property – church buildings, schools, hospitals – under RICO laws, but more than that, make it illegal to say mass, attend mass, own a Catholic bible … yes, I know how problematic this would be, morally, as well as impossible to enforce in the real world … ”

Been tried before and found wanting, I’m afraid. One needs of course the power of an absolute dictator to do it, and England had one in the person of Henry Tudor, who was on the throne from 1509 to 1547.

I think that those necessary medical treatments include hysterectomy. according to the doctrine of double effect it is not abortion, so… The fetus/embryo dies anyway and the woman has to go through a major surgery and lose an organ, but who cares, it`s not abortion!

Ordinary anti-choicers usually have no idea about hysterectomy as a means to save a pregnant woman. To many of them this idea would be horrifying: The “baby” dies and the mother loses her ability to have more babies? That would be unacceptable.
To them such Declarations like the one above usually mean something else. They just believe that pregnant women magically never get so sick that they need stop being pregnant. After all, that`s the only remaining interpretation…

Yes, there are attempts to work around calling a necessary procedure an abortion. But often the self-declared pro-life movement will simply state that the woman in question should die. The only treatment available to save the woman in Arizona was an abortion of a healthy fetus in a healthy uterus. Hysterectomy could have been used, but there was absolutely no indication for it and it would have vastly increased the risk to the patient. They flat out said she should die. I’m embarrassed that there are OBs in the world so stupid and ill trained that they would not understand that abortion is sometimes a life saving procedure. They should not be allowed to practice. End of story. No anti-woman OBs, no Jehovah’s witness blood bankers.

Actually, when I think about it, any OB who claims that abortion is never necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman should be evaluated for antisocial personality disorder. Because a practicing OB will have seen cases where an abortion was necessary and may have let a patient die when she could have been saved. They have failed to have empathy for another person who is dying right in front of them and that’s a major diagnostic criterion for APD. And their medical licenses should be pulled entirely. They aren’t safe. Even if they left OB entirely, they will always put their own feelings first and therefore should not ever be trusted in a position where they have power over human lives.

“Iknklast@20: No; you’ve misunderstood. When they “affirm that direct abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman”, what they mean is that saving the life of a woman is not medically necessary.”

My bad. I guess I keep getting caught up in the (mistaken) notion that women are people. I keep forgetting we’re merely incubators.

My mom nearly died when I was 10 because a Catholic doctor (at the local naval base, no less) refused to tie her tubes after her 5th child, and her 6th pregnancy was very life-threatening. The doctor’s action? Scold my mom for getting pregnant again (birth control in this days was not as effective as it is now). By the way, for the record, my mother, though fundamentalist, was never Catholic. She had no problem with birth control and tubal ligation.

Actually, when I think about it, any OB who claims that abortion is never necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman should be evaluated for antisocial personality disorder. Because a practicing OB will have seen cases where an abortion was necessary and may have let a patient die when she could have been saved. They have failed to have empathy for another person who is dying right in front of them and that’s a major diagnostic criterion for APD. And their medical licenses should be pulled entirely. They aren’t safe. Even if they left OB entirely, they will always put their own feelings first and therefore should not ever be trusted in a position where they have power over human lives.

We have more-or-less 140 persons to evaluate from the Dublin symposium. Well, that is, we would, if they had the courage to release the signatories to their Declaration. And that is, if we had any power.

Sadly, what I know about the medical world suggests it getting worse, not better, as doctors being educated today are not being taught about abortion at all. If the only information they receive is a lie like the one propagated by this symposium, the new doctors are not really to blame for being unable to recognize when an abortion is necessary. But blame or not, the women will still be harmed or dead.

Words cannot express how glad I am not to be a woman of childbearing age, anywhere, even in a supposedly modern country nowadays. I cry for our younger sisters and daughters.

@dianne
You are right, of course. I have read that the AZ bishop wrote that the woman should have died.

I have interacted mostly with individual anti-choicers in my country (Slovakia) who refused to admit that pregnant women can get so sick. When I tried to point out that women can die without abortion, they insisted on denying that possibility. Also they would say that abortion is murder, but when asked about punishment for women who had an abortion they would not have an answer. I should have specified I was talking about this type of anti-choicer.

jb: Would it help to point out that the actual Nazis were profoundly anti-choice? They favored forced abortions for some, denial of abortions for others, but they never allowed women to have free choice or control over their fertility.

Could you point out where anyone on this blog or elsewhere advocates “killing children”? Oh, sorry, you meant “killing non-viable and moribund foetuses threatening the lives of women who, if their lives are saved by the abortions indicated by medical circumstances, could usually go on to have the baby/ies they wanted in future, thereby fulfilling the objective the Catholic Chirch’s god has for them, rather than dying in pain and distress, and leaving their families bereft”…

Note that the very first post after hotshoe’s (which itself acknowledges that banning the Catholic Church would not be legal or ethical, hence his/her statement “I’ve been wishing we could” and “yes, I know how problematic this would be, morally, as well as impossible to enforce in the real world”) points out the obvious historical parallels and says that no, that would not be acceptable in this day and age.

And if it really came to it, I think you’d find us atheists and secularists out on the streets with you fighting for your freedom of religion, and your freedom to believe what you want on the matter of abortion. Would you similarly fight for our right not to have our lives ruled by your religion and its dogma, O Bandita?